


잊혀질 꿈 (a dream to be forgotten)

by miuyi (rainiest)



Category: EXO (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: #014: dreams, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 03:39:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9366407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainiest/pseuds/miuyi
Summary: she's dreaming?





	

**Author's Note:**

> written in september for the theme 'dreams' at thekpop100, original was posted with the title 'she's dreaming' and can be found [here](http://thekpop100.livejournal.com/41489.html)
> 
> i'm going through all the little things i've written over the past six or so months and crossposting a few of my favourites to ao3, but you can find a list of all of them [here](http://miuyi.livejournal.com/4158.html)
> 
> title and inspiration from [she's dreaming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSQbWlgxHK0) by exo.
> 
> **warning** for mentions of departures from exo and implied sexual content

A lot of people must be looking for him right now but Joohyun isn't one of them. And yet here she is, and here he is, slumped against a vending machine, the single source of light on this floor, like a moth blindly following flame into the night.

Junmyeon doesn't notice her. His eyes are closed. Maybe he's sleeping standing up, like horses do. She knew why once, but she’s forgotten.

She almost leaves, but then she notices how the light of the vending machine dyes his skin blue, like he's a paper cutout of a person instead of the real thing and, for some reason, that makes her start down the corridor towards him.

His face is all tired shadows. She knows why. A few days ago Wu Yifan flew to China, and he won't be coming back. She watched MCountdown today, watched Junmyeon lift a trophy meant for twelve all by himself.

Junmyeon doesn't move as she feeds loose change from her pocket into the machine. A bottle clatters down. Joohyun crouches and reaches in, and when she straightens Junmyeon is staring at her. She slips the bottle of iced coffee into his hand. Neither of them speak. 

After a moment, she turns and walks away.

 

 

 

The sun winks against the water as they take off over it. Joohyun tries to see past it, to the seafloor, but it's too deep. They break through the clouds, and she leans back and closes her eyes.

Only as the plane shudders down onto the runway three hours later does she realise that maybe she was looking for herself down there; a tiny, smooth pebble that the light never reaches.

 

 

 

The news hasn't officially broken, but she knows the moment she sees his face. He flinches when she answers the door, like he'd been half-hoping she wouldn't.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I don't know why I-- I'll go.” He has one hand resting on the doorframe. His knuckles are white.

“Do you want to come in?” she asks. 

He stares down at her socks. “Yes, please,” he murmurs finally.

He follows her into the bedroom. Seungwan is in the other one with the door closed, but no one else is home. She sits on the bed, back against the wall. After a moment, he sits beside her.

A long time passes. He reaches for her hand at some point, and she lets him. He’s very, very warm.

“It's not so bad a number,” she says eventually. “Nine.”

Junmyeon stares down at their hands and says, finally, “I guess not.”

 

 

 

It storms for a week straight in February.

“Would you believe me if I told you this was my fault?” Junmyeon asks her. 

She shifts the phone to her other ear. “What?”

“Water. It's my superpower.” He can say it without laughing now.

“No, I wouldn't. Believe you.”

“Oh, well.” He sounds so, so tired, but there's a smile in his voice.

“Did you know horses sleep standing up?”

“Really?” he asks. “Why?”

“I don't know.” Joohyun is tired too. “I've forgotten.”

 

 

 

He knocks on her door again in Osaka. They sit on the couch and watch television. Junmyeon translates the funniest parts for her, still laughing.

It grows late. The sky falls asleep, the city below it wakes. He leans over and kisses her cheek, then her lips, then her neck. She rests her hand along the curve of his skull, feather-light. The shorn sides of his hair itch at her jaw. She can smell the bleach in it, sharp and chemical, but his lips are soft against her throat.

He pulls back before she can ask him to and smiles as he tells her goodnight. The feeling of his mouth on her neck remains until she falls asleep.

 

 

 

In Tokyo, she no longer wants to stop, so they don’t.

 

 

 

“Do you dream?” she asks in Hawaii.

He glances at her in the mirror, where he's rubbing suncream onto his cheek. “Sometimes.” 

“About what?”

“Once I dreamt about lightning, and a girl falling from the sky.” She hopes he doesn't mean her. If it was about a girl rising up from the depths of the ocean, moon-pale and eyes closed, then maybe.

“I dream about a river,” she says. “A river that flows out of a city and into the sky.”

 

 

 

“I remembered why,” she tells him, on the last morning. He doesn't answer. “It's so they can run away. The horses.”

They're in his room this time. The sun has yet to rise. Joohyun feels strange, like she's coming to the end of the line on the last bus of the night, her stop miles and miles back on the dark road. 

She presses her lips to his temple. He stirs, but doesn't wake. “You'll be okay without me,” she says. “The river won’t hurt you. Make it take you to the sky.” 

She leaves, closing the door quietly behind her. She's jumping out of the boat, and the currents are strong. They'll probably drag her all the way to the riverbed. 

She thinks she’ll be okay down there.


End file.
